


The Halls of the Goblin King

by queenbookwench



Category: The Princess and the Goblin - All Media Types
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-20
Updated: 2006-12-20
Packaged: 2018-01-25 08:53:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1642637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenbookwench/pseuds/queenbookwench
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Takes place immediately after The Princess and the Goblin.<br/>No one ever asks what happened to the goblins.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Halls of the Goblin King

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much to likeadeuce, who convinced me to do this in the first place, held my metaphorical hand, and betaed even though she didn't know the fandom. You're the best.
> 
> Written for Minerva McTabby

 

 

The young goblin lay on the rock and wept until his whole body felt drained of water, and then he fell asleep. When he woke, it was morning and a ray of light had stabbed its way into the ravine where he lay. He blinked and squinched up his eyes against the bright glowing spots the light made in his vision. As he moved from the blankness of sleep into wakefulness, he was uncertain and confused, wondering why he had slept on this cold rock, rather than at home in his own snug cavern with his mother and father. Then he recalled.  He would have begun to weep again, but something moved in the corner of his eye. He spun around, startled. There stood an above-ground woman, but one so old and wrinkled that she might almost have been his own goblin granny. He could not tell how long she might have been there, watching him in silence, and the hairs on his back quivered.

"Why are you lying among these rocks, child? Are you lost?" Her voice was surprisingly low and melodic, for such an old woman, and the young goblin felt for a moment that all he wanted in the world was to go on listening to her, as long as ever he might. Then he remembered what she was, an above-ground woman no matter how much she looked like his granny--exactly the sort his mother had warned him might steal him away and do who knew what horrible things to him. One of the people whose king had stolen their land, generations and generations ago, and forced them to live under the earth.

"Go away, old woman," he shouted. "I am here because the water came rushing through our caverns and I ran and ran, and my mother and father are likely dead--and I think you must be glad! Isn't that what all the miners wish, that all the filthy goblins would disappear and never trouble them again?" Horrified, he realized that his shouts had turned into gasping sobs.

The old woman stepped forward, opened her arms and wrapped them around him. He kicked and fought, but at least he grew tired and sank into her embrace, burying his face into her robes. She shifted a little from side to side, all the while humming a low, rumbling tune that did not hurt his ears the way that the taunting songs of the miners had always done.

"No, child. I take no pleasure in the deaths of your people. Indeed, they grieve me very much. But perhaps you are right that I am partly to blame."

The young goblin looked indignant. "If that stupid Princess Irene had only stayed where she was put, and not run away, none of this would have happened.  I don't see why she was so upset-she'd still be a princess after all, and a queen someday, under the earth.  The above-ground king owes us something after all-why not a princess?"

She stared at him now, her face level and stern, like a statue, and yet also somehow sad, He took a step back from her, realizing that he had been lulled by her kind manner into saying things that might be dangerous to say to an above-ground witch.

"You must understand," she said in a low voice, "that Princess Irene is my many-times great-granddaughter, and my especial charge. I could not allow her to be imprisoned under the earth. She is a brave and stout-hearted girl, but...imagine being snatched away from your home and all the people who care for you, to go among people who hated you, and wanted only to taunt and hurt, and having to stare all day into bright sunlight with no relief. That is how it would have been for her, and worse, if I had not given her the means to rescue herself.  And she is only a little girl, younger than you."

Her eyes grew sad and worried with thoughts of what might have been, but then they brightened with laughter that made her look, for a moment, like a young girl rather than an old woman. "And besides, would you care to be wed to Prince Harelip if you were a princess?"

The young goblin laughed despite himself and shook his head. "Indeed I wouldn't! Harelip is a great booby and a bully besides-and imagine having horrid Queen Griselda for a mother-in-law! She'd never have a moment's peace.  How did you help her get away, anyhow?"

"That I will not tell you, for it is not your tale." Then she sighed a little, and seemed to look like a royal lady in the prime of her years, but one who had seen much sorrow and many troubles. "I fear that the kingdom above ground may have need of Princess Irene, and of the miner boy Curdie, before too long. All is not well in the king's city of Gwyntystorm."

"Well," said the young goblin, "I don't want to hurt anyone, not like Harelip and the king do, but I wouldn't be sorry to see the greedy old vultures of that city get what's coming to them. That was where the edict came from that raised our taxes and pushed us off our land, but the king's miners still keep digging and digging into our caverns, just as if they had the right to them!"

"I am perhaps the only person now living who knows the whole truth, for the wicked king who forced you off your land was my own grandfather. In the meantime, the miners are content and thoughtless, choosing to believe that your people are not quite human, so they need not worry about doing wrong to you. While your people brood in the dark on old wrongs and hatreds, until many hearts have grown twisted. And under your present king (or perhaps I should say, under his queen and councilors) it has grown worse, which is why I have not traveled much in the goblin realms of late. Where hatred festers, I cannot remain long."

"But I have never seen you in our kingdom at all!" The young goblin exclaimed. "Now I think you are lying and trying to confuse me, just as my mother said an above-ground witch would do!"

"You may think you have not seen me, but I travel in many lands and have many guises." She seemed to wrinkle and shrivel up, even more than when he had first seen her, until she appeared as an ancient goblin woman, with a homely face. And it was a face he remembered, from when he was very small. She used to sit at the back of the caverns and teach the youngest children games or tell them stories, with a long-legged goblin cat curled in her lap, while the grown folk attended councils or feasts. She was someone's granny or spinster auntie, but never seemed to belong to any of the children who were actually there.  He had been very fond of her, but gradually had forgotten her as he grew older. Until just now.

"Oh!" was all he could say as he sucked in a breath.

"So you see, I have kept your realm in mind, though perhaps not so well as I should have," she said.

"Well," he said, "if you are truly as fond of my people as of the miners, then will you help me-help me find my family, if they're still alive?"

"I shall do all that and more, child, if you heed me. But first, tell me your name."

He swallowed hard and tried to be bold, for everyone knew that telling your name to an aboveground witch was the greatest of follies. "I am called Inko," he said, "and what shall I call you?"

"You may call me the old princess, or the white lady, or, if you wish, you may call me Grandmother, as Irene and Curdie do."

Inko was not altogether certain that he wanted such a grandmother, but he was conscious of being offered a great honor, so he straightened up and looked her in the eye. "That is what I'll call you then-Grandmother." It didn't feel as strange to say as he had thought it would.

"Now then," she said, "you must be about the business of seeking your family and your people. But before you go, let me give you a gift."  She reached into her robes and drew out a lovely white tapered candle.  She breathed over the wick and it burst into flame.

"This candle's flame," she said, "is drawn from my hearth-fires, and is never wholly extinguished. If you must snuff it out, simply breathe upon the wick, and it will light again as if it had never gone out.  And if you should ever have need of me, blow upon the wick and whisper the words, 'Grandmother Irene, come to my aid' and I shall do so if it is within my power. But mind that your heart is pure and your intentions good, or you will wish you had not asked."

Inko nodded gravely, and reached out to take the candle from her.

"Go in peace, Inko of the goblin people," she said.

"The same to you, Grandmother Irene," he replied quietly, before disappearing into the tunnels. His eyes blurred and watered again with the sudden shift from light into darkness. He briefly wondered if his entire encounter had been some sort of fever-dream brought on by sunstroke, but he had only to clutch the candle between his fingers to remind himself that it had been very real.

In tunnels and caverns that they know well, the goblin people have no need of light, but Inko had washed up in a part of the country that was less familiar to him, and he was glad of the glimmer of the candle as he sought a path that would lead him back to the main goblin caves. He progressed deeper and deeper into the tunnels, until all of a sudden he turned a corner and heard loud voices and the march of several feet. He drew breath to call out and run to them, but closed his mouth before letting out a syllable.  They might be miners, come to seek revenge on the goblins for the destruction they had wrought. He blew out his candle and slipped behind a large boulder.  As they drew closer, he realized that the voices were not miners' voices, but the voices of goblins, in fact, of the very goblins he least wished to see-Harelip and his cronies!

"Wasn't it clever of me, to remain at the back of the tunnel? Now, our people need not worry that they will be left leaderless-the royal line is secure." Harelip's voice fairly glowed with self-satisfaction.

"Yes, your Majesty, very good thinking indeed," was the chorus of approval from the remaining goblin councilors.

"And we're well rid of all those inconvenient people-like that fool Grimald. He was always setting himself in opposition to my late, beloved father's plans.  He sabotaged the excavation-I'm sure of it! Otherwise it would have succeeded, and our glorious victory over the aboveground wretches would be complete."

"Surely then, there should be consequences, your majesty." It was the hissing voice of the king's chief councilor, who, like a cat, had once again landed on his feet.

"Hmm...I don't see how there can be consequences, seeing how the fool's already dead.  I know-we'll make sure he gets a traitor's burial, to discourage anyone else who might think of getting uppity.  And if any of his family still lives, perhaps they'd enjoy a term of special service to the king."

"Well thought, your majesty, well thought indeed," the councilor replied, and the rest of their talk was lost as they tramped away down the passage.

Inko held himself very still, forcing himself to breathe in and out. Grimald was his father's name.  They were talking about his father, in this callous way, his father who was the best mining engineer and the best man he knew.  His father who was really dead, now.

All at once, he knew what he would do, and hurried away.  He had to make a plan.

As day began to sink toward night above ground, the remnants of the goblin people made their way to the central caverns, huddling together, and asking one another for word of missing wives, husbands, and children.  Some rejoiced when they received news, while others broke into noisy wailing, and still others slipped away quietly, to wrap the dead for their traditional burial, entombed in pits stretching deep into the earth.

After nearly all of the survivors were gathered, Harelip and the chief councilor and several burly soldiers mounted the royal dais at the far end of the meeting hall.  "Although our losses have been great," Harelip said, "our victory over the above-ground people is nearly complete.  This morning we saw the glorious sight of the king's men retreating from our mountain, never to return.  We must mourn our losses, including my noble father the king, and my beloved step-mother the queen, and we must prepare to continue our great revenge against the kingdom above ground.  But first, we must set an example to all those who would weaken us, who would reduce us to cowardly crawlers in the night.  This man," he stepped aside, to reveal two of his burly attendants carrying a body, "was a traitor to my father's plans, who sabotaged his own people.  Since it is, alas, too late to try and execute him for his crimes, we will perform the traitors' burial ritual.  Soldiers, draw and quarter him."

The hall was utterly still, his words hanging in the air. Then Inko (who had been concealed in the shadowed crowd at the base of the dais) lept up, to stand between the knives of the soldiers and his father's body.

 He called out, "Will you let this fool Harelip drive us to ruin-my father was a good man and a wise man, and look how Harelip's men treat him!" There were a few catcalls from the crowd, but many cheered.  "Who is the reason our families are dead?  Do not look at my father-look at the prince on this dais and his men.  He had brought death upon us while saving his own miserable skin!"

The soldiers converged on Inko, long knives drawn, but he ducked down and dashed between them, jumping down into the crowd.  He took a breath, then whispered, "Grandmother Irene, come to my aid."  Then he blew on the candle.

It lit up in a brilliant arc of light, catching and refracting on every piece of quartz or mica in the walls and roof.  The whole hall was radiant, and Harelip and his men cried out and covered their eyes.  Many in the crowd did the same, but when the glow finally dissipated, they chanted as one, "Inko, Inko, Inko."

And he rose, and climbed the dais again, and sat down on the throne of the goblin king.  He dispersed everyone to their homes, to clear out the wreckage and prepare for a great ritual of mourning.  He had members of the crowd arrest Harelip and his councilors and thugs, but instead of ordering them executed, as many in the crowd howled for him to do (as ardently as they had howled for the goblin king's revenge a few weeks earlier) he formed them into a work gang to assist the families who had lost all that they had.  Then he commanded some sturdy citizens to direct them and see that they committed no mischief.  At last, after everyone had gone away, he sat by himself upon the goblin king's throne.  He was barely more than a boy, certainly not yet a man, and he was now the ruler of his people.  And he was alone, but for his father's body.  He whispered, "Grandmother Irene, come to my aid.  I do not know what to do."

And suddenly, she was there, standing beside him on the dais, queen-like and beautiful, with a radiance that seemed tinged with fire.  She held out her arms, as she had done before, and he turned to embrace her.  "My dear child," she said, "you have a long road ahead of you, but you have done well today.  As for what to do-mourn your father.  Take care of your father. Help your people to find peace."

"What's that about my mother?  Is she truly alive?"

"She is-I found her curled in a ravine farther down the mountain, still holding onto her cat.  She and the cat are a little scratched, but otherwise unharmed."

"Did you speak to her? Let her know I am alive?"

"I let her be, for I judged that the sudden appearance of an above-ground witch would only frighten her.  I set a protection on her, though-no one will molest her in any way, so long as the virtue of my gift remains. Perhaps you would like me to lead you to the spot?"

"Yes, Grandmother, I would like it very much."

 She rested a hand upon his shoulder, and they walked up through the caverns, and into the air, where the day had nearly finished its journey into night, and the sky had turned a deep indigo.

When they neared the spot where his mother lay, Princess Irene turned to Inko.  "Here I shall leave you, but never hesitate to call on me if when you are in need, even if it is only of some advice."

"Truly, I don't have the least notion of how to be king! I'm only a boy."

"You will learn, child.  Remember to be kind when you can, and just when you cannot, and you will do well enough."

And so it was.

The End.

 


End file.
